MCLC: stirring essay by Murong Xuecun (8)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: stirring essay by Murong Xuecun (8)
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When Mr. Kouremenos rejects Damo's rule ("The fact they don't allow you to
say it proves that it is true") as "abysmally wrong," I have to admit
that, as a philosophical principle, it *is* wrong.

But I read it as a heuristic guideline for inferring the truth in an
environment where information is restricted by a self-serving government.
As such, it has a British analogue familiar to viewers of "Yes, Minister":

"The first rule of politics: never believe anything until it's been
officially denied."

Like all guidelines about human life, this one will encounter exceptions.
The denial of the Holocaust, criminalized by European statutes, is one
such exception.  Mercifully, there aren't many other kinds of statements
which it is illegal to express in Europe.  In China, now and even more so
during the youth of Hu Fayun, there has been a very large set of things
which it was illegal to talk about, and over time, some Chinese noticed a
pattern.  Damo's rule describes that pattern succinctly and memorably.
It is one of the reasons I read writers like Hu and Murong with respect.

A. E. Clark